In fact, to me monkhood is nothing much, it’s just wearing a different uniform, from Dockers’ pants to saffron robes, or like working in a different firm.

What’s more, being a monk is what’s made an individual like me change.

And l don’t feel inadequate or contempt or inferior. I only feel happy.

The answer actually boils down into just one sentence.

I just ‘let it go’.

When I let go, I feel lighter. When I feel lighter, I feel happier.

Look at this mathematic function [y = 1/x]

When ‘x’ is less, ‘y’ is more.

When ‘x’ is a lot lesser, ‘y’ is even much, much more – exponentially more.

‘y’ = happiness, ‘x’ = the attachment I have.

Why is that so? That’s how the game works; it is the law of nature. When you let go of something from your hand, obviously you feel lighter. No doubt about it, right?

Why Can’t I Let Go?

Let it go…but how?

You know yourself that sometimes you have to let go of certain things in your life to make your life happier each day, but somehow it doesn’t work.

“Why can’t I forget him after so many years of relationships” or “Ahhh…This person makes me so frustrated!” or “Oh…they have it? I also have to have it.”

Letting go sounds easy but why can’t we do it sometimes? You know why? It’s a law of cause and effect.

You can’t let go by just letting-go. You have to produce enough cause for ‘letting go’ to happen.

What causes the ‘let-go’ effect? That’s a question we shall address today.

The Path

The answer is ‘The Path’. When I step on this path, the ‘letting-go’ effect begins to take shape and I become lighter. When I become lighter, I feel freedom. When I feel freedom then I feel relaxed. When I feel relaxed, then I become tranquil. When I’m suffused with tranquility, then I experience equanimity from within. And this is the process of happiness.

What is The Path? It consist of 8 elements.

1. Right Understanding

You have to understand what the problem is, and what isn’t. When you realize what the problem is then you can solve it.

2. Right Thought

Those negative thoughts are harmful. Get rid of them.

3. Right Speech

When you have positive thoughts then you can speak positively. In fact, speaking positively can also influence positive thought and vice-versa.

4. Right Physical Action

It doesn’t mean to take action towards your goal, it means to act positively. When you think positive, say positive things, then of course you can act positively.

5. Right Livelihood

When your ‘thoughts’, ‘speech’ and ‘action’ are right, then you have to put it into your life. Living by doing it all the time. Live by it.

6. Right Effort

In doing all these, you have to put in your effort. A kite needs to go against the wind to be able to go up. Whenever obstacles put you into the negative domain, you have to use your effort to push it back.

7. Right Mindfulness

Be careful, sometimes negativity comes. So you have to be mindful. Guard all your senses by being mindful of what enters your mind.

8. Right Meditation

It is a balance of the mind. It the state of mind where you can gain inside happiness and use this power to ‘let-go’.

I hope you can start to hop on The Path and experience more inner peace, by letting go of some of the things that have been bothering you right now.

Be well.

P.S. Alvin mentioned about Living The Important, that’s an exact example of how we use our path to be happier and make the most out of our life.

Edit from Alvin: I’ve made some changes to the grammar and helped Paiboon create a table.

Warning: Spoilers ahead!

Watching Spiderman 3 reveals a part of the Hero’s Journey that is not often seen; the hero’s downfall.

If you’re not familiar with the previous steps of the hero’s journey, download my free Hero’s Journey ebook. If you’re familiar with the 10 steps, you’ll know the Spiderman movies are wonderful metaphors for the hero’s journey (although the Lord of the Rings trilogy kick so much more ass!).

The hero’s downfall can happen anytime after the Supreme Ordeal. After the hero’s faced down his biggest enemies, and possibly Claimed His Treasure, his ego gets inflated. Having had a taste of his own power, he mistakenly begins to think he’s the greatest thing to come along since sliced bread. He becomes an arrogant pain in the ass.

But because he acts on this arrogant power, he triggers an opposing reaction that now comes and smack him back down. What he thought was the Supreme Ordeal now looks like a lazy stroll in the park compared to this monster (a dragon, an angry boss, an overzealous spouse…sliced muffins?). The lesson is clear: despite all your power and achievement, you are not the latest greatest thing on Earth. But you still have a mission to fulfill.

The hero’s old self died a first time when he Crossed the Threshold, and was reborn when he faced down the Supreme Ordeal and survived. Now he dies another time, but it is the death of the small ego, and he is reborn again, humbled but wiser about himself and his place in the world.

Now strengthened and humbled at the same time, he is even better at putting his talents to work, and he finds his place and calling in the world.

When I was coaching motivational workshops, I saw a lot of people who were ‘workshop junkies’; they’d be landing from workshop to workshop, seemingly learning loads, but never really producing fantastic results in their own lives.

While my fellow coaches and I discussed many reasons as to why, lately I realized another elegant way it could be explained using the metaphor of The Hero’s Journey.

In The Hero’s Journey, you travel through 2 worlds: The Ordinary World, and The Extraordinary World.

In The Hero’s Journey series, I called The Extraordinary World ‘The New World’, but for this article it’s more accurate to call it by what happens in it; The World of Transformation. In The Ordinary World, you remain the same person, it’s in The World of Transformation that you’re challenged and stretched out of your comfort zone to grow into someone new.

Motivational Workshops As A Mini Hero’s Journey

Motivational workshops, especially ones that take place over a few days, and are immersive, introspective and challenging, are like a mini Hero’s Journey. In fact, a few are specially designed to be that way.

You, the participant, start out from your ordinary world, and cross the threshold into the training place, full of new people and activities you’ve never done before. You encounter coaches and trainers, as well as fellow particpants who’ll help and challenge you.

If the workshop is particularly introspective and challenging, you’ll face doubts and demons during the times you stretch yourself. You come across ordeals against your limits, and you have to overcome them in order to seize the treasures of the workshop, whether it’s increased confidence, better public speaking skills, expert knowledge or learning more about yourself.

After the course is over, you return with your newfound treasures back to your ordinary world, to integrate them back into your life so that it’s enriched by your experience.

How Heroes Get Stuck

People become stuck when they’re unable to take the treasures they seized from The World of Transformation and integrate them back into The Ordinary World.

While some turn cynical and blame the workshop, techniques or themselves for not being able to use the skills they learnt in The Ordinary World, some seek the thrill, energy and dynamicism of the workshop environment again and again, going back to The World of Transformation, through new helpers and challengers, new supreme ordeals and treasures.

But as long as they cannot take these new treasures back into The Ordinary World and their ordinary lives, they’re stuck.

They’re always looking for the next big thing, the next big technique or revelation that should change their lives, never taking what they’ve already learnt to produce results right now.

I should know, I used to see this person in the mirror

Your Treasure: Use It or Lose It

While you might have extraordinary experiences in The World of Transformation, eventually you return home and live in The Ordinary World. You have to integrate the inner and outer treasures you’ve earned when you come back into The Ordinary World or they’re lost.

Another example is someone who’s gone on a tour (The World of Transformation) and had the experience of their lives. Now they’re back in their home country, how do they go on? The mundane minutiae of everyday life can hardly compare to their recent grand Hero’s Journey.

But those who do, are able to take the expansion of their experience into their everyday life, perhaps what seemed to be mundane isn’t so after all, and they’re able to look at old things in a new light.

But those who remain stuck in an inauthentic state will not see the joy in the mundane any longer, they cannot bring back the same sense of wonder from The World of Transformation back into their ordinary life. Instead, they must go back on the road again and again, seeking the high of being in The World of Transformation, without ever being able to bring that same joy back to The Ordinary World of their lives.

How Heroes Get Unstuck

Using the NLP presupposition that underlying every behaviour is a positive intention, we can see that even an addiction has a positive intent.

In my experience with workshop junkies, it’s become very clear these stuck heroes are fulfilling very worthwhile needs in ineffective ways.

The fastest way for workshop addicts to wean themselves off is recognize the needs they’re meeting by going to these workshops, and to find ways to do that in The Ordinary World.

If going to workshops is the only way for someone to get in touch with themselves, for example, then stop going to workshops, take a day off and get in touch with yourself.

If going to workshops is the only thing making you feel a sense of achievement, stop going and find a way to achieve in your own life.

If going to a workshop is the only way you can find to make a difference in your life, stop, and find a way to make a difference in your own life.

If you’ve gone through the Supreme Ordeal, you already have Seized Your Treasure. Only when you use those treasures in your Ordinary World and make it extraordinary, will you leave the cycle of being stuck in The World of Transformation, and embark on the next leg of your Hero’s Journey.

Free Hero’s Journey mini e-book

If you haven’t downloaded it yet, my Hero’s Journey mini e-book is avaliable free for readers of Life Coaches Blog:

The Hero’s Journey mini e-book

while a summary of The Hero’s Journey is here.

It’s a wonderful dream: I am victorious and claiming the Treasure after vanquishing the Evil One.

I would love to stay in that dream.

Who wouldn’t?

I was jerked back into Reality when someone dropped this on Me and was rendered unconscious. It documents what I am to expect for the journey ahead. The Ordinary World beckoned so…

I feel constricted, like my lungs are burning and collapsing in on themselves. Each breath burns as I gasp for air. My vision begins to blur and cloud over. Panic seizes Me and I told Myself that I will deal with that in a while…a while that will never come.

A darkness looms over my encroached form.

Behold the Threshold Guardian #1: PAIN!

PAIN!: Hey Loser, quit wasting our time and go back to where you came from, it’s just not worth it…you feel Me? Oh now now, stop your whimpering…must be feeling lonely without Me around. Well, bad news brother, PAIN will go with you no matter where you go henceforth.

Behold the Threshold Guardian #2: FAILURE

FAILURE: Yo bro!! I am with you in relation to PAIN! I am before, during, after, within, without, foregrounding, backgrounding…omni-present, omni-potent coz you allow me to be prevalent. Meet my sergeant-in-arm…

Behold the Threshold Guardian #3: LIMITING BELIEF

LIMITING BELIEF: How can you move ahead when I’m so loud I happen all the time!!

Behold the Threshold Guardian #4: FEAR

FEAR: Boo!! I am Panic’s friend. You’ve lost Me!!

Behold the Threshold Guardian #5: CHANGE

CHANGE: I’ve always wanted you to be my friend. You have to next deal with PERFECTION, EXPECTATION, LOSS, and the horde of ETC’s and their minions of PROCRASTINATION. You must call out your birthright…you have CHOICE, your sword call VALUE and your trusty ride cum side-kick called ACTION.
Now.

I stirred into wakefulness. I am aware again. To find Me back, I need to face down the ultimate Trash-hold Guardian:

The Next Chapter: Reprisal: A New Hope.

The popularity of The Hero’s Journey series seriously surprised me. I guess it’s because people find it resonates with them; The Hero’s Journey reflects back our own journeys through life and helps us find our way.

In my own journey, I’ve found it very useful for me to know where I am, especially when I’m crossing a threshold or facing the Evil One, whether it’s a difficult client or a tough deadline, because I know all I need to do is endure the ordeal and I can claim my treasure.

Click here to read the whole Hero’s Journey series, including Pete’s very funny and original take on it with his just started Loser’s Journey series, and a few posts on my own Hero’s Journey that happened in the midst of my writing.

And of course, click here to download The Hero’s Journey 21 page mini e-book, compliments on the house

P.S. If you enjoyed The Hero’s Journey mini e-book, send it to a friend! You may distribute it freely, in fact, I’d love it if you do, as long as it remains unaltered.

BUT…

Where the fuck is my Wise Mentor like they say there will be? No fairy-god-mother-look-alike, wand-waving, sagely hermit, Yoda-type humanoid in psychedelic colour (green is just too boring and reminds me of Kermit the Frog). Oh? Is it my fault that I don’t read books? I buy them just to look good. I will no sooner fall asleep than to do anything about them. Awaken the Unlimited Power of 7 Habit of Moving Cheese in One Minute Soup for the Chicken Soul to Get Things Done Like Your Rich Dad and Poor Mine. Crap!! If so many are sold, there will be as many successful people!!

No one appeared to tell me what training workshop would totally prepare me for the journey that I’m taking. If only I can find one that screens movie and play songs that should inspire me!!

I might as well stay put and resign to my fate.

“What if you have a Wise Mentor NOW What will you do?”

I won’t hem and haw…

“You dodo bird! What WILL you do, not what you won’t!!”

I will take it as a sign to move ahead… darn it!! Isn’t that a pattern of mine? I want it to be a perfect beginning, I want to be totally equipped right at the beginning. Yet, I ignore all the possible mentors out there. Oh my, this is the Real McCoy…the true blue bonafide Call to Adventure: I am procrastinating and it’s costing me!!

“Well now that you’ve gotten pass that, let’s put things into perspective…”

Whoa…hold the horses, who the hell are you?

“I am Me, together we are part of Myself.”

Huh? I know I am…

“Know Me is too…let’s get acquainted: Me is in the state of Flow, your alter ego. Characterised by relaxed concentration, enjoyment and trust.”

Are you my Wise Mentor?

“Well, not in the form that you thought a Wise Mentor should be. I am not a book or song and only half the man. You only know Me as a voice inside your head. You only feel my presence when things seem to fall in place without any conscious deliberation on your part. Before you go labelling Me as your Unconscious Competence, just wanna clarify that UC is an agent and a friend of mind, mine too!!”

So why aren’t you here all the time?

“Sigh…you are asking too much from Me coz you fill your physical and mental space with too much junk leaving Me with no space. You can start by taking stock of all the petty annoyances, minor irritations and small flaws that you are putting up with and get rid of them.”

Give Me space…and I can grow.

My Wise Mentor is Me, among others. I am aware.

Now.